July 15, 2008

In the NYT, Bill Carter takes the position that Barack Obama is impermeable to good satire. McCain is susceptible to jokes because he has one distinctive mockable quality: old age.

But there has been little humor about Mr. Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race.

“We’re doing jokes about people in his orbit, not really about him,” said Mike Sweeney, the head writer for Mr. O’Brien on “Late Night.” The jokes will come, representatives of the late-night shows said, when Mr. Obama does or says something that defines him — in comedy terms.

That is so disingenuous. The best targets are the strong. Any decent political satirist should have an instinct to go after the most powerful individuals. I don't believe Sweeney and Stewart for one minute. The real explanation for the lack of jokes is some combination of the desire for Obama to win and the fear of seeming racist.

“The thing is, he’s not buffoonish in any way,” said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson’s monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Mr. Letterman. “He’s not a comical figure,” Mr. Barry said.

Fire every comic writer who says that and bring in some people with brains and nerve.

I agree. Obama ought to be a target-rich personage for comics. There's a lot of potential material there. Even the mere fact that he takes himself so seriously is all by itself begging to be lampooned. The reason they're not doing it and not going after him is not just because he's black. At least not in and of itself. They'd have no problem teeing off on Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, for instance. And a couple of years ago Condi Rice was made fun of and caricatured precisely for her race and ethnic features. I say it's because they are afraid of being called racist by their liberal buddies. Add to that they really want him to win, and they don't want to do anything that might undermine the chances, or be accused of having done so after the fact if he loses.

As Liberal Rapture puts it, it seems that nowadays there is more fear in being perceived as racist than actually being racist. The New Yorker is known for it's satirical covers, so why should Obama be any different or left out?His supporters have never really defended him with any facts, just dreams of hope and change. This cover will be looked at by them and immediately be discarded as racist because of course, that will always be their retort.

Speaking of strong and weak...I saw footage of Sen. McCain getting off a plane a few days ago...he was wearing a ball cap (that was a bit large) and a sweatshirt, and he seemed so frail walking down the stairs. This should be an appearance his campaign needs to avoid- looking like someone's tottering old grandfather. It would seem they don't want to talk about his physical limitations leftover from the torture he endured in Hanoi, but if they're going to let him look slow and frail they might want to rethink it.

You want satire and sarcasm? Not going to happen. Nah Gah Dah. Not going there. So not going there.

Just as the fact that no one reflects about how in many locations over 90% of black people voted for Obama, no white person is going to make fun of Obama.

Now, aside from that let's be honest ... the guy is not funny. I mean you could certainly diss him on how his wife leads him around like a little boy but even that would step over the feminist line in the sand.

Maybe they thought that their funny jokes would be deleted because the proprietor is oh so sensitive and white liberal guilt ridden that they do not think black people can take a joke. And then give one right back.

Nobody, not even Obama's opponents, want to hear people make fun of him. Remember when Michelle was poking fun at Obama? Everyone took it as a serious attack. Here's a summary from last October's Slate:

Michelle Obama has stopped publicizing even her husband's most forgivable flaws, though truth to tell, she never accused him of anything more reprehensible than leaving the butter out after breakfast. Still, she no longer enlightens audiences on how he can't seem to manage to pitch his dirty socks into the hamper. In interviews, she has quit humanizing him quite as pungently as when she told Glamour that he's "so snore-y and stinky" when he wakes up in the morning that their little girls don't want to crawl into bed with him.

Ann (or another blogger) might consider creating an Obama joke contest. The prize for the winner could be a mint copy of the July 21 New Yorker.

If only Obama possessed the legendary humor and grace of McTrollop, like when he snaps at reporters daring to ask an unscripted question while aboard the Lap Dog Express, or chokes people while on diplomatic missions, or jokes about killing civilian populations. Dreamy!

You can say the most harsh and cutting things you want about George Bush. You know, George Bush, the Hitler-clone who has supposedly taken all our freedoms away?

Meanwhile, folks are scared to say even the slightest unkind word about Obama, partly because "he is black," but also partly because he's from the left. The dissenting left abhors and will not tolerate dissent directed at the left.

Have your Obama impersonator smoke during a press conference. If people complain, he could 'wave the flag'; "Bogart smoked, and who's more American than he?" Or, "Y'all keep telling me I'm cool, and what's cooler than smoking?" Or,"Hey isn't this too, change?"

Barack Obama’s grandmother became despondent over the fact that she had become an issue in the presidential campaign. So she decided that the only way to make amends was to kill herself. But she didn’t want to be a burden on her family if she botched the job. So she called up her doctor and asked how she could find her heart. She wanted to shoot herself there because her Barry had broken it when he threw her under the bus. Her doctor told her it was easy. It was right under her breast.

Later that night she showed up in the emergency room. She had shot herself in the foot.

Nobody heard about it because she told them she was Eliot Spitzer’s grandmother.

The last thing we need is a president who can't laugh at himself. Obama apparently just shrugged when asked about the Cover, but then his spokespersons attacked it. In my post this morning, I added "winkies" to the cover for those who can't recognize satire, and asked Barack to call off his PC Police.

Meanwhile, folks are scared to say even the slightest unkind word about Obama, partly because "he is black," but also partly because he's from the left. The dissenting left abhors and will not tolerate dissent directed at the left.

Garden gnome Kucinich was the only real lefty running for President, and I think he was the subject of considerable kidding. People were a bit awestruck at his red-haired honey though.

Barack Obama is too boring to satirize. It's like making jokes about a macrobiotic organic vegan herbal supplement. In fact, Obama is like a macrobiotic organic vegan herbal supplement. Both are supposed to make you healthy and happy and well (but it's probably a placebo effect), both are initially flavorless if you swallow them quickly before their coating wears off, both attract gullible, idealistic, illogical people looking to "feel" better, both might be very bad for you but you'll never know until you've already taken them. And both will cost you a frickin' fortune.

Hey wait, did I just make a satirical joke about Barack Obama? Maybe I need to rethink my original thesis about his boringness.

Obama's age and experience make him an easy target. His record makes Dan Quayle, circa 1988, look like a seasoned statesman, and Quayle was only going to be VP. And there's an easy hook; Obama has the same name as his father, making him a junior. Barry Junior, the kid wonder who will campaign in all fifty-seven states . . .

But the writers, they're all busy fellatiating the new Jack Kennedy, which gets in the way of satire.

He's said that he's a kind of quilt of America -- that he has slave-owner and slaves in him, white and black. You could make a joke about how he has a little bit of everything in him, and they are all yacking at each other. And you could have them all arguing with each other -- slapping at each other. Chris Rock would do this pretty well, all the parts telling all the other parts to shut up, etc.

It would be like a multiple personality only all the personalities were simultaneously aware of one another. Good physical gag I think.

You could throw in his wanting to smoke versus his wanting to look PC.

Ha. After Bush, he seems like a god. What? The man can speak for more than a paragraph without shoving his foot, his leg, and his abdomen in his mouth? The comedians are in awe. The last eight years all comedic muscles have gotten flabby since the joker in chief has been handing them pre-chewed material like a pack of baby birds.

OMG, a presidential candidate who has spent the last year waging all-out political war on all sides, whose prize is a massive shit pile of debt, war, and domestic decay, is taking things seriously. Everybody, grab your shotguns and lets form a militia before he pronounces nuclear properly and confuses our kids!!!I WISH EVERYBODY WOULD TAKE THIS STUFF MORE SERIOUSLY! WHAT PLANET ARE YOU PEOPLE LIVING ON?

The tone-deaf reaction to the New Yorker cover explains why comedians don't write so many Obama jokes. Obama and his followers cannot laugh at such jokes. They get angry. They accuse the writer of bad faith. They try to rewrite the joke into what would be acceptable. How many times in the past two days have I read Kevin Drum-like rewrites of the New Yorker cover, i.e. "It would have been funnier and braver by golly if the whole scene had been a thought-balloon by McCain." What kind of humorless jerks think that way?

The best source for material on Obama is his penchant for taking himself oh so seriously.

Althouse demonstrates her awesome mind-reading abilities: "The real explanation for the lack of jokes is some combination of the desire for Obama to win and the fear of seeming racist."

Or, how else does Ann know why other people do things? This is a commonly displayed part of Althouse "thinking" that shows her poor judgment.

Ann, the beginning of wisdom is to admit what we do not know. You don't know why these people do the things they do. All you have is your biases and predispositions. To constantly claim to know "the real reason" people do things is, well, dumb.

Barak Obama’s grandmother always had problems with buses even before he threw her under it. One day she got on the bus to go home, but once she sat down she realized she really had to piss.

Unfortunately, her stop is still far away, so she decided to pee out of the bus’s window when no one is looking.

As the bus rides, she went to the back, stuck her ass out the window, lifted her skirt and peed.

Unfortunately though, some of her pee landed in a young man’s face, who happened to be riding his bike as the bus passed.

He raced the bus until the next stop, boarded the bus and told the driver to wait. This huge and terrifying young man shouted, “OK, WHO WAS IT THAT JUST SPIT ON ME?”. Nobody answered, so he asked once again, ‘COME ON, I WOULD SOON FIND OUT ANYWAY, SO FESS UP AND I WON’T FUCK UP BUT ONE OF YOU FOOLS!!! IF I DON’T FIND OUT, I’LL FUCK YOU ALL UP”

The old woman, being a typical white woman, out of fear and pity to the other passengers finally stood up and said, “It was me, young man”.

1- You weren't around for LBJI was born during the Eisenhower admin., a week before JFK (jr), so my earwings were still small and cute during the LBJ years. My memories of LBJ are mostly from "Laugh In": "It is with a heavy heart...that Ah ask you...to remove your football...from my pajamas."

Here's an idea, folks. How about someone coming up with actually funny Obama jokes before we get all these "explanations" about why no one is telling Obama jokes? Nobody has any objection to Saturday Night Live's hilarious take on his mannerisms, but the only half-way decent Obama joke I've heard is: Did you know that Obama has fathered two black children? When someone actually comes up with some good Obama jokes and gets in trouble, then there will be something to explain, and not until.

The real explanation for the lack of jokes is some combination of the desire for Obama to win and the fear of seeming racist.

Yes, and because you don't tell jokes about Jesus in church!

Chris Rock Afraid To Publicly Back Barack Obama

2008-01-09

Chris Rock Comedian Chris Rock refuses to be overly vocal in his support for presidential hopeful Barack Obama - in the fear he will ruin the candidate's chances of winning the 2008 election.

The comic has joined celebrity supporters Oprah Winfrey and Scarlett Johansson by formerly endorsing the senator - but is afraid his often controversial jokes may keep Obama from reaching the White House.

He explains, "You see, I have a mild case of comedic Tourette's. It's so easy for me to say the wrong thing, so I don't want to hurt the guy - 'We coulda had a black President if it wasn't for Chris Rock!' I think he's a good guy - and I never thought in my lifetime there would be a chance of having a black President."

If Chris Rock is scared you know the great herd of White male nerd comedy writers paralyzed with fear.

It seems like skinny guy jokes are all they have. But isn't that a compliment in a nation of blubber boys?

Hey, at least it doesn't run to the disgusting, like McCain's sense of 'humor'.

Whoever wrote the article you linked apparently can't perform basis arithmetic. He cites Clinton as having been 17 at the time of the joke. McCain told it in June of 1998, Clinton was born in February of 1980.

Of course, it is a lot harder to feign offense when the target of the joke is an adult. That was probably the cause of the, ah, "mistake".

1. They're afraid. Accusations of racism fly like pollen in Spring these days, and people lose their careers over poorly-chosen words. Comedians and comedic writers are simply afraid to make jokes about Barack.

2. Most people in the entertainment industry are Democrats, and most comedy writers are men, so Barack is their candidate. They don't want to make fun of the candidate they support.

On a serious note, if we create a situation where a magazine cover becomes a matter of public censorship, are we any better than radical mullahs who terrorized European cartoonists for a relatively innocuous cartoon simply because they were told to oppose it? Secondly, the media has been uncharacteristically soft on Obama while regularly skewering other candidates of both parties. At some point he's going to have to face the same scrutiny as other candidates. And if he can't stand the heat, he needs to get out of the kitchen because I promise that Middle Eastern dictators won't give a flip if his feelings are hurt.

Additionally, after reading some of the comments, don't you think an inability to laugh at oneself is pretty much an indicator of narcissism? I bet Hitler didn't put up with much criticism. Neither did Stalin or Pol Pot. So if we gain a president, who has the power to overstep the rule of law, since he will have a pet Congress, isn't that cause for worry? Plus, how come, even if I like him personally but won't vote for him due to his views, I will still be labeled as racist?

Since when is he black? He is bi-racial. If you feel guilty, make fun of the white side of his family.

Cartoonists seem to be able to capture the oddness of his looks. Will Smith thinks Hussein's ears stick out too much. And his sissiness is fertile ground for lampooning. He is about as fey as an alleged straight man can be.

And the smoking - what is up with that - come on, don't Bogart that fag, Barry - grow a pair, burn those lung stabbers like you mean it.

This is the relevant excerpt about the NYer cover, and why Democrats are falling over themselves to make sense of it.

But the phenomenon you are seeing here, with this handwringing worry about "W. Virginians" believing the New Yorker cover is true ("Hey, if a Liberal magazine puts it on their cover, it must be true!"), it is, is really not about ignorant W. Virginians.

It's about the Left of America not comfortable in acknowledging that their Party contains people who are white, and yet don't think like them.

In their world, where minorities are king, and intellectual elitism is something positive, rural blue-collar white folk are akin to Martians.

Here is a demographic that they cannot control, because they cannot relate to them. In turn, the W. Virginians (who are actually stand-ins at large for this phenomenon, and can live anywhere in the US) feel this, and react accordingly by not toeing the Party line come election time.

When you can't make fun of people unless they are Republicans, white, males, rich, religious, patriotic, the field for satire or freedom of speech becomes very narrow.

If you care for the comic future of America, it's simple. Vote for the old white guy, and save Kathy Griffin's career.

There's plenty to lampoon about Barack -- he is the skinniest nominee in the modern era, a literal empty suit. He has massive ears. He told Iowa farmers he was concerned about the high price of arugula at Whole Foods. He did not consider unholy Trinity to be controversial. Father Pfleger, the world's only wigga priest, was Barack's moral compass. Michelle looks like Aunt Esther. Etc., etc., etc.

It's not that you can't joke about Obama. That particular joke just missed it's mark and hit Obama. Other than that, there are no other instances where Obama was offended by a joke. Suggestions that he's sensitive are exaggerated.

He is a Chicago politician. He seeks only self aggrandizement. He has no position that he will defend. He stands for nothing, but, apparently, falls for any extremist cant that he hears from his terrorist friends.

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our President.

The old rancher said, “Well, ya know, Obama is a post turtle.” Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle’ was. The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.”

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain. “You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb asses put him up there to begin with.”